Manchin’s New Push for Gun Control and the Dangers of Indulging Incremental Tyranny

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin was dealt a significant blow earlier this month as the Senate failed to pass the Toomey-Manchin Amendment to the doomed anti-gun rights legislation. The amendment served as a much-touted “compromise” to strengthen the background check process. It failed 54-46 as the amendment needed 60 votes to pass.

Manchin told “Fox News Sunday” that he’s going to rework the proposal to get it back to the Senate floor.

“I believe that with all of my heart, and we’re going to work this bill,” he told Fox News…

On Friday, Toomey said he had no plans to revive the proposal.

“My own view is very simple: The Senate has had its vote. We’ve seen the outcome of that vote. I am not aware of any reason to believe that if we had the vote again that we’d have a different outcome,” [Toomey] said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Manchin told Fox: “I don’t think he’s done.”

He also said he has spoken with fellow gun owners who appear to support legislation that would keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the severe mentally ill.

Manchin said “law-abiding citizens” support background checks, and he urged Americans to read the proposal, then tell him what parts they don’t like.

In truth, the amendment was pretty much a dud. Its passing would not have had immediate, dire consequences for gun rights supporters; the danger rested in the precedent.

The problem with anti-gun legislation is that they never stop there. When gun control advocates obtain a victory, they are satisfied for only a short while until they begin to mobilize again against the Second Amendment.

The problem with Toomey-Manchin was not that it was the direst, sweeping anti-gun legislation to come down the pipe in years; it’s that it was a re-negotiation of our previously agreed-upon Constitutional rights.

The formation of the Second Amendment was not done in tremendous haste. The ratification of all amendments takes time and careful consideration. In 1791, the deal was struck; our right to keep and bear arms would not be infringed. If the founders had intended for there to be “common sense” gun control restrictions included, they would have written it down.

I’ll put it this way: Imagine you buy a car from a dealer. You haggle over price and options and you strike a deal. You drive off the lot with your new car, but receive a call a month later from the dealer who insists that the deal he struck was too one-sided. He says you should sit back down at the table and negotiate what you will pay for the car that you already own.

Any self-respecting person would laugh and hang up. Nobody should feel compelled to re-negotiate for that which they already have.

Another month goes by and you receive another call from the dealer. He sees your point, but thinks that you should just pay $20 extra.

It’s not a huge deal, but paying that would set a precedent. If you re-negotiate for that which you already have and acquiesce to paying just a little bit more, you would invite monthly calls to “meet him half-way.”

That’s been the strategy of gun-grabbers for decades. Two steps forward and one step back. When the left obtains a victory, they wait a brief period and then begin another push for further gun control. When they get dealt a defeat, they throw a fit (see Obama’s tantrum) and then try to secure a partial victory with calls to “compromise.”

Whatever Manchin crafts will be unsatisfactory to those who value freedom because the issue has already been decided. The deal was struck in 1791 to not limit our right to keep and bear arms and each concession America has made has only welcomed others in later years.